Comment by cryoshon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cryoshon | Hacker News Reader

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high profile failures like this are exactly why i'm taking things into my own hands and starting a company dedicated to making the voluntary purchase of carbon credits/offsets accessible to the public and to small/mid-sized companies.

we can't wait for the political leadership to get their game together any longer, and we can't wait for the part of the population that doesn't belive there is a crisis to come around either.

we need to start financing the prevention or removal of carbon from the atmosphere today, using the voluntary carbon markets that we have. there aren't another five or ten years of indecision that we can afford to waste. and we don't have any better system for emissions reductions, yet.

those of us who understand the gravity of our present climate situation have the burden of carrying everyone else on our backs to the extent that we are able. addressing our planet's health is not something that will be fair in terms of the responsibilities that we need to take. an idealistic few must come forth and create the means for our mutual salvation, and they can expect only to thanklessly toil in the short-term.

it's a bitter pill to swallow, but we need to accept it and start moving forward rather than getting mired in spite towards those who won't help, or fatalism that we can't change our situation. taking action will be our protection against depression, and chipping away at our planet's climate crisis will inspire others to join our efforts.

send me an email (it's in my profile) if you want to help/join me. i need anyone and everyone who wants to contribute.

but be warned: if you want to join my effort, at present i can promise you nothing but my appreciation and the assurance that you're trying to be one of the good guys.

As I understand it, the voluntary purchase of carbon credits and offsets is already accessible to the public and to small to mid-sized companies, no?

I am fully with you on the importance of acting now on any grounds we can, politically, financially, with business, etcetc, don't get me wrong.

In what way will your business differ from other carbon offset businesses? I google, and I find terrapass. I donate to cotap on a monthly basis. All of these are very accessible, or am I missing something?

sure, offsets are technically purchaseable -- if you know what they are, where to buy them, which sellers are reputable, which type of offset/credit/other carbon instrument you want to buy, what's the difference between different types of carbon instrument, how retirement of an instrument works, etc.

you are probably someone who cares about this stuff roughly a million times more than the average member of the public, but for most people, the actions you specified aren't on the radar.

nobody i've spoken to has even known about offsets, nevermind what they do or how to access the markets as an individual. people do vaguely know about the idea of "cap and trade", but that's not exactly something they think of as being relevant to their lives or their efforts to mitigate climate change, even if it is.

there's a huge gap between the public's willingness to participate in these type of carbon reduction plans and their knowledge about how to actually do so and how much they should actually be contributing to make up for their personal carbon footprint.

i'm not proposing to do anything revolutionary. creating a new source of offsets is a non-starter. my idea is merely to close the gap.

to inform people that they aren't powerless, and to reduce the friction of navigating the carbon markets at the scale they would prefer.

Thanks for the reply, your line of thought makes a lot of sense. Most people I know, even the ones that care about the climate don't know about carbon offsets. If your primary purpose is to reach a wider audience, I applaud your efforts!

It’s also creating a pool of resources to actually do something about the problem.

I agree. The plant to get everyone on board has failed. The only option left is to solve your own emissions in a way that forces everyone else to follow suit.

Carbon offsets are a scam, they do not prevent CO2 to be added to the current levels we have now.

It's just for capitalists to believe they can keep flying by planting trees.

You can buy EU CO2 certificates and resell them for a profit which makes emitting CO2 uneconomical because of all of the middlemen who are taking their cut. If you never sell them below the purchase price they won't result in emissions. It's a win win situation.

it's true, offsets can't prevent purchasers from adding to their emissions, if they choose to act in contradiction to the spirit of purchasing offsets in the first place (mitigating the emissions which cannot be immediately reduced for whatever reason to buy time for when they can be reduced).

however, they can fund projects to help people with less money to reduce their emissions by an equal amount, generating a large value in beneficial externalities as a result.

if i purchase an offset and the proceeds go to a hydropower project in india, there's a lot more going on there than the compensation for one ton of emissions alone.

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